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On Words vs. Issues
So, let's talk about dirty words, insults, etc and let's talk about actual words. I get many comments from a variety of different people who tell me that I shouldn't use words like "spaz" or "moron." The reason they usually give is that those words promote ableism. Normally, I ignore these people. But I've decided that it's become a destructive enough force to give comment on. Because, I think that going after words creates many, many issues. Today we're going to be talking about ableism because it's the topic I have the most familiarity with as opposed to sexism or racism or classism. Or should I say, I have familiarity with ableism issues and issues of disabled rights. Here are the issues on front of disabled rights that I do care about: Autism Speaks, the most visible charity towards autistic people (possibly disabled people in general) spread lies, false stereotypes, for awhile encouraged people not to get their kids to get vaccinated, and instead of helping people living with autism, they use most of their funds looking for a cure to autism. And no, contrary to what some people say, the fact that many people don't understand autism does not excuse Autism Speaks for doing this. They're choosing to do this, and you wouldn't celebrate a vigilante for causing causulties Autism is a scapegoat for crazy people who don't like vaccines, for people who'd rather have their children dead than disable * The Judge Rotenburg center. I've written an extensive journal on the horrors that they commit * Many disabled students, particularly people with dyslexia, are barred from graduation because the standardied tests required for graduation measures their disabilities, not their ablities. * Eugenicists. Just, eugenicists in general. They try to improve the genetic quality of the human population by reducing the birthrate or flat out sterilization of people with undesired traits.When it's not a scientific excuse to be racist, it's against the disabled. In the United States, many asylums had compulsary sterilization procedures. In 1927, the Supreme Court in the case Buck vs. Bell ruled that forcing the sterilization of the disabled did not violate the 14th ammendment and has never been expressly overturned. On top of that, the only reason why it got to that level to begin with was because some parents claimed that their neurotypical girl was insane specifically to get her sterilized. * It took until the 1970's to repeal the last forced sterilization procedure in the United States. In the 1980's, it became illegal to starve disabled children. * Stupid/assholish people will claim they have a disability to excuse the behavior. The mentally disabled are portrayed horribly in the media. On television: * Every autistic person is either nonverbal and rocking back and forth in the corner, or Rainman. * Every woman with postpartum depression will inevitably attempt infanticide. * Every teenager with depression is just going through a phase. * Everyone with schizophrenia will have vivid hallucinations telling them to kill people. * Everyone with Tourette's will swear all the fucking time. * All people with very low intelligence will be seen as "cute" in a patronizing way, or as a clear and present danger. The few times I've read about blogs claiming to fight against ableism, it's all about people using the word "retard," or people making a fuss against someone being overweight. Now, bullying definitely is a legit problem that disabled people face. Unfortunately it's not a problem that's unique to disabled people. Smart people get called "retarded." Thin people get called "fat." These words definitely do have a negative connotation. I'm not going to deny that. But like I said, there are other pressing issues that disabled people have than other people using the word "retarded." I've stated this, and some people agree with me. However, some people had a rebuttal. They said that starting by fighting these words will solve the problem of the prejudice. My rebuttal is... no it won't. Stupid internet people didn't make up the word "sperg" to give people with Asperger's a negative connotation. Stupid internet people made up the word "sperg" because people with Asperger's already had a negative connotation. Why did Asperger's have a negative connotation? Well, a large part of that reason is people claiming they had the disability to act like assholes—which isn't excuseable even if you have the disability. Making people stop using the word "sperg" will not stop assholes from claiming they have Asperger's to justify their behavior. It works like that with any prejudice. Think of racism or sexism. What came first? Gaining rights, or stopping slurs? To the public perception, the most complained about problem is the biggest problem. I've seen full blogs of people complaining about other people using words they don't like, claiming to fight for disabled rights, without even mentioning things like the Judge Rotenburg Center. And you know what, when people do things like that, it makes it harder to fight for disabled rights. The word "ableism" is not taken seriously. I'm going to tell you that point blank. It's for this reason that it's not taken seriously. And I'm telling you that fighting against true-blue ableism is difficult enough as it is because in some ways it is fighting to be treated differently than other people (giving people with dyslexia more time on standardized tests) while fighting to be treated the same as neurotypical people (media representation, for one). Doing that for fighting against any other form of discrimination, except perhaps for ageism, by definition makes you fighting for that kind of discrimination, just swinging the pendulum. That's a difficult demand for people who have been long-jaded by the so called "Opression Olympics." You've probably heard of the Opression Olympics, with people not trying to solve inequality but claiming that they're more oppressed than everyone else to garner more sympathy. It's a problem to every rights' group, and it's in every rights' group's best interest to remove the Opression Olympics. And you can't dismantle them if you're competing in them. I understand that there's a grey area between describing how bad one segment of the population has and competing in the Opression Olympics. People in the grey area are very rare. Do these words hurt? Are the dehumanizing? Sure. I can conceed that. I'm not telling you to grow a thicker spine, or turn the other cheek. You could do that, but after an entire life of doing that it gets harder and harder. But the fact of the matter is that you can take away someone's words, but that will not remove their opinions. It will not kill their opinions. And yes, there will always be fuck-shits in the world, and sometimes those fuck-shits get together and make the whole world burn. On another note: censorship is ALWAYS used AGAINST the oppressed class. If you have the ability to censor someone else, you have some kind of power over them. BY DEFINITION. You can't make assholes shut up without being an asshole yourself. I understand the appeal to doing so though. It seems to be the easiest thing any given person could do, and it's what people who are already fighting the battle are doing. Fighting any kind of discrimination is never easy, and if you sign up for the battle, you shouldn't expect it to be easy. And I can tell you that the people who are doing this, are making things harder. So what can you do? I'm assuming that you're already a good role model, or are trying to be a good role model. I'm assuming that you know when to blame your disability and when to take responsibility. If you're doing that, it's a really good start. Spread awareness about your particular disability, and I don't mean the "it exists" lip-service awareness that you frequently see during cancer awareness months. Yes guys, I'm glad your wearing that kind of color, but everyone already knows that that type of cancer exists. Give me some facts and figures. Know which charities to support, and which charities are PETA by another name. Petition the government, especially when it comes to things like the Judge Rotenburg Center. Ask for, or create, better portrayals in the media. Or, point people towards the ones that already exist, like South Park's portrayal of Tourette's, or To the Moon's portrayal of Asperger's Syndrome. Pick any of the particular issues I've listed and tackle that one specifically. Sometimes all it takes is spreading awareness. Category:Miscellaneous